W.H. thinks it has high ground

President Barack Obama’s deficit strategy is a combination of audacity, hope and — in the eyes of Republicans — chutzpah.

Obama, vilified by opponents for ducking the debt debate earlier this year, has seized the opportunity to portray himself as the champion of a $4 trillion “grand bargain” on tax and entitlement reform. This, after Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who spent months pushing the president in that direction, pulled out of any attempt to “go big” over the weekend.

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“Obama wants $4 trillion in debt reduction,” while GOP wants only $2trillion to $3 trillion, wrote veteran Democratic pollster Geoff Garin. It “seems clear now which one is serious about tackling the debt.”

Added a senior Democratic aide, “He’s got the high ground. He’s the adult in the room. He’s looking good right now.”

Many Democrats believe Obama’s proposed $4 trillion deficit-cutting deal, panned by lawmakers in both parties as too unpalatable to pass, may be a win-win politically for the president.

If it were to go through, he would get credit for tackling an issue that is a priority among independent voters likely to decide next year’s presidential election. But failure would have its own rewards, giving Obama the chance to exploit disagreements among Republican leaders while touting a massive deficit reduction plan without expending the political capital necessary to achieve it.

“To me, this feels like a big kabuki theater act on the part of the administration,” said a Republican Hill aide. “It is simply impossible to believe this administration is all in for major entitlement reform when they’ve taken a pass until now but are suddenly willing to take the political heat.”

“I think he wants to win the ‘who is most serious about the deficit’ contest among the electorate,” said Jim Kessler, a former Democratic Senate aide and founder of the moderate group Third Way. “His No. 1 goal is to get a big, grand bargain deal. But absent that, he can show the American people that he was willing to put everything on the table” while claiming “Republicans, once again, walked away from the table.”

On Monday, Obama called his second news conference in two weeks to flay Republicans for backing out of an ambitious plan at what he believes is the moment of maximum political opportunity before the 2012 campaign.

“Let’s step up. Let’s do it,” said Obama, who has yet to publicly endorse the smaller deficit reduction target of $2 trillion to $2.5 trillion now backed by many Republicans.

“I’m prepared to take on significant heat from my party to get something done, and I expect the other side should be willing to do the same thing if they mean what they say,” he said.

“If not now, when?”

At the moment, Obama would seem to have little leverage to force the GOP into increasing taxes on the wealthy, a step he has made a prerequisite for a deal. And his demands that the GOP come up with hundreds of billions in new “revenues” were received with indifference, if not hostility, by Republican leaders who met with the president Monday afternoon.

Obama opened the meeting by reiterating he still wants a big deal, telling Republicans that they “have to put a certain amount of sacred cows on the table” to get even a smaller agreement.